WSU Women's Tennis falls to Louisiana Tech

Sunday afternoon, the Weber State University women’s tennis team hosted the Louisiana Tech University Bulldogs in an outdoor match. The Wildcats came in searching for their first win, but they were unable to pull it off as they were swept in the doubles matches and only won one of their six singles matches.

In the doubles competition, WSU found itself overmatched by LTU. Senior Brittiny Moore teamed up with sophomore Ashley Tanner and managed to win five games, but they were unable to overcome the Bulldogs duo, losing their match five to eight.

Sophomores Nittaya Phonharath and Michelle Warwick teamed together for their doubles match, but they struggled too, falling two games to eight. The Wildcats third doubles tandem, freshman Carly Lloyd and sophomore Thais Kurer, did not fair much better. They lost their match to the Bulldogs three to eight.

As the singles matches began, WSU quickly lost to LTU in two of the matches. Tanner lost in two sets, falling 6-7 in the first set and 2-6 in the second. Warwick also lost in two sets, losing 1-6 both times.

Kurer’s singles match proved to be a bright spot for the Wildcats when she won in two sets, 6-2 and 6-3. Moore, Phonharath and sophomore Annika Karlsen all succeeded in winning their first sets with scores of 6-1, 6-3 and 7-6 respectively. However, the Bulldogs rallied to take the second matches, defeating Moore 6-3, and defeating Phonharath and Karlsen both by a score of 7-5.

Moore fought hard, rallying from behind to force a tiebreaker set, but she came up short, losing 6-7. Phonharath ended up losing 1-6 to LTU despite her best efforts, and Karlsen also fell by a score of 4-6.

Despite being swept in her singles match, Tanner remained positive after the loss.

“Everyone gave their best effort today,” Tanner said. “(The team) came out fighting and fought to the end in every match.”

With the loss, WSU fell to 0-15 on the season. Head Coach Jonas Ehrlin talked after the game about his pride in the way his team performed, saying that the team came out and played very hard.

Coach Ehrlin pointed to the doubles matches as being key to the loss.

“If we could have gotten started a bit sooner and gotten some more points in the doubles matches, I think we could have won,” he said.

Coach Ehrlin remained pleased by the team’s single match performances.

“These were very close singles matches that could have gone either way,” Ehrlin said. “I’m really proud of how hard they played in singles.”

The Wildcats next game will be Tuesday afternoon when WSU hosts the Utah State University Aggies. Looking towards the upcoming match, Ehrlin said that the team needs to focus more on its doubles matches and up the tempo in its singles matches.

“We have to play better doubles and take that into singles,” Ehrlin said. “I think that’s the number one thing.”